


Game, Set, Match

by kerlin



Category: Alias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So you're Sydney Bristow. I'm not impressed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game, Set, Match

There were some things the CIA didn’t mention when it recruited you.

They had never said anything about the heels. Nowhere in all the confidentiality agreements Sydney had signed was there a reference – even in the small print – to the kind of friendly fire torture currently being visited on her feet by four inch spike heels. The stitching of the vinyl straps around her ankle was rubbing the skin there raw, she had lost feeling in her toes in the first half hour, and the arch of her foot was spasming in rhythm with her heart.

They had never said anything about the wig, either. Sure, the disguise maverick – who always stayed safely in his workshop in LA – had gone into paroxysms of delight when he saw Sydney for the first time. Sure, her facial structure meant she was almost infinitely disguisable given the right wig and makeup combination. But what they hadn't told her anything about was the splitting headache that came from more than an hour of wearing one. The range of motion she needed meant that they practically had to attach wigs with crazy glue, which meant they tugged painfully at her scalp.

At least the food was good, Sydney reflected as she snagged a crab puff from a passing waiter's tray. Despite the political and ethnic tensions rippling across the disparate states of the former Yugoslavia, the high-class galas went on.

Tonight's event was a cocktail party leading into a big money auction of medieval and Renaissance art pieces, mostly ugly pieces of furniture. Representatives of auction houses and art collectors made polite noises at each other over expensive champagne and imported caviar, and Sydney was left to reflect on the fact that no matter what city she was in, these parties were always the same. She never got to taste the champagne, at least one old man tried to grab her ass, and at the end of the night, at the very least, she had foot cramps and a headache for her troubles. If she wasn't so lucky, usually there was a long list of bruises and pulled muscles to factor in as well.

"Cygnus, you copy?"

"I'm here, Sirius" At least Dixon was here. Probably it was overkill that SD-6 had sent her in with backup, but she was grateful for his voice in her ear. It wouldn't have been bearable otherwise, especially as Lecher #1 had spotted her from across the room and was pushing his way through the crowd toward her. Damn Byers anyway for the neckline on this dress. She resisted the urge to tug the fabric up in a vain attempt to cover at least some skin.

"Have you ID'd the contact yet?"

"Not yet, but he's almost always on the late side."

What the CIA didn't mention most all was the utter lack of glamour and complete boredom involved in informant operations.

The contact was a British expatriate named Simon Faulk who was working with one of the many relief organizations based out of Belgrade. A month ago he had contacted SD-6, claiming that his organization was a front for FTL efforts to sell weapons to revolutionary groups creating havoc throughout the country. His story had checked out, and Sydney had been assigned as his handler while she was on restricted duty recovering from her broken arm.

That was two months ago, and of all the reasons she regretted breaking her arm, being assigned as Faulk's handler had to be near the top of the list.

Faulk insisted on being referred to by his code name, and chose "Indiana" in homage to the action hero. He was a nervous, twitchy man who fretted off any weight he ever gained, leaving him with a haunted, scarecrow-like appearance. He insisted on setting increasingly elaborate protocol for meetings, and was obsessed with the flashy intricacies of spycraft. In his case, all the hoops he forced Sydney to jump through were needless: he wasn't nearly important enough to be watched closely. He was just a man who had found himself in shady circumstances, and took a way out that satisfied his own inner need to play the hero rather than for any altruistic motivations.

If she'd been able to make the initial contact for SD-6 and then move on once she went back to field status, Sydney wouldn't have minded the whole situation. She probably would have relished the chance to catch her breath for a few months on less strenuous operations, and had the chance to enjoy all these ritzy parties instead of constantly being in physical danger from whichever guard made her first.

But Faulk had grown attached to her – either that or he just liked putting her in situations that let him look down her front – and had refused to work with any other SD-6 agent, not even the highly qualified agent who had replaced Sydney with all her other European assets. So even after the SD-6 medical division had ruled her fit for active duty again, she still had to fly to Belgrade to be handed nearly useless intelligence on a nickel and dime FTL operation.

Sydney had told Director Sloane as much when Faulk had made his initial protests, but with the calm, persuasive logic that was his hallmark, Sloane had reminded her that NATO operations in Kosovo and other parts of the former Yugoslavia could only accomplish so much. It was up to the CIA to undermine the fighters' support systems from underneath, and that meant dozens of small time informants like Faulk tipping them off to arms shipments so that the CIA could seize them and take them out of the country.

Director Sloane's biggest drawback, in Sydney's opinion, was that he was far too often exactly right. He also knew exactly how to put a problem to her in terms that meant she could hardly refuse and would even feel guilty about complaining.

"Sirius, this is Cygnus, I've got a positive ID."

Faulk's tuxedo hung ill fitting on his bony frame, and he looked incredibly out of place at the swank gathering. No few high-society guests cast sidewise glances and muttered under their breaths, but they also bit their tongues and assumed that he had the money to justify his presence. Wealth excused a wide range of sins.

For all his pretensions, he wasn't very subtle; he made eye contact with her across the room as the auctioneer tapped his champagne glass, the signal for the assembled art aficionados to make their way to the adjoining auction room. Sydney tried her best to convey to him that noticing her in any way was a very bad idea before turning to smile at the older woman next to her. She received a frosty glare from the cutthroat art dealer for her attempts at pleasantry.

"Entering the auction room."

"Copy, Cygnus. If you see anything that would look good in my living room, you'll let me know?"

"Sirius, the dust they clean off this furniture is about to be sold for more than you make in a year."

Sydney loved Dixon's laugh: deep, full-throated, and genuine, it was a kitchen table kind of laugh. Hearing it through her earpiece on a mission always reminded her of why she accepted her permanent state of jet lag, and hearing it as she crossed through the double doors into the lavishly appointed auction room reminded her why they couldn't let FTL sell weapons to Yugoslavian revolutionaries.

"Loud and clear, Cygnus. Going radio silent now; contact me when you're clear."

"Copy, Sirius. See you on the other side."

The auction house employed surprisingly sophisticated signal jamming hardware in order to prevent any outside communications and force those bidding for a client to use the company-provided land line phones in booths at the back of the room. Given time and duct tape, Marshall probably could have come up with a way around the interference, but for such a low-level meeting, diverting Marshall's attention from the server upgrade he was currently overseeing wasn't really worth it.

So she went in deaf and on her own, and would admit under duress that she loved feeling on her own like this in small doses. It was still comforting and stabilizing to know that Dixon was waiting for her in the van outside, but there was a rush that came from knowing she had to rely on her own wit and skill while inside.

Granted, she wouldn't need even a fraction of a percentage of her full faculties tonight, but Sydney never put anything less than her all into everything she did. Sloane had chided her more than once about burnout, but back from a four month lay-up she was ready to get back into the game and relished the opportunity to use her skills.

So she counted the steps to her seat, an aisle seat, and marked exits. She surveyed the room and identified possible weapons, mentally catalogued suspicious-looking guests (the man in the gray suit hadn’t yet taken his hand out of his pocket; the woman in the mink kept shifting her eyes around the room; the clean-shaven young man in the back held himself in a way that suggested martial arts training) and still kept part of her mind tracking Faulk's movements. The informant chose an outside seat near the side exit on the opposite side of the room and settled into it uneasily, twirling the lollipop-shaped identification sign the auction house had given him in his fingers, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

He was far more nervous than he had been at any of their previous meetings, but that probably had more to do with the fact that his well of information was drying up than with any actual danger. He certainly hadn't been followed here. Dixon would have notified her. Faulk was just sulking because after tonight, SD-6 would have enough information to strike at the FTL front organization's headquarters and disable the entire operation.

The murmur in the room died down and Sydney pulled her own indicator sign out of the small purse, laying it across her lap. She had to sit at the very edge of the chair to achieve even a semblance of comfort. The floor-length silver dress she was wearing was tight across her stomach and its spaghetti straps were more for show than anything else. It had been designed to look good on tall standing women, and sitting down, Sydney discovered that the fabric either tugged in the back, threatening to break the straps, or in the front, threatening to spill her pushed-up cleavage right out of the dress.

Two more hours at the most and this would be over, she told herself and smiled at the late arrival who pushed past her to sit down. The auctioneer began with a solid-looking oak chair that had once belonged to a Hapsburg prince, opening bidding at 100,000 dinars. Sydney did the math in her head and wondered why anyone would pay nearly two thousand dollars for such a boring piece of furniture.

The bidding continued in that direction for some time until Lot 94, an Italian Renaissance end table with a surprisingly lovely geometric design inlaid in marble on the top. Sydney waited patiently and raised her sign at the appropriate time to enter a bid of 350,000 dinars.

"350,000 dinars to the number 47, the lady in silver, do I hear 360,000?"

The woman in the mink coat raised her number, and Sydney began calculations in the back of her mind. Another man from across the room joined in, and when the bidding reached 395,000, Faulk raised his sign.

"395,000 dinars to number 63, do I hear 400,000? 400,000 to number 33, the lady in the back, do I hear 405,000? This is your last chance to own this fine work by the eccentric artist Milo Rambaldi. It once graced the private apartments of Pope Alexander VI himself. This is your last chance, because this beautiful table is going, going…gone to number 33 for 400,000 dinars."

The woman in mink exited the room to follow through with the creditors while Sydney was busy watching Faulk hop to his feet and slink out the exit in a way he undoubtedly thought was clever. It was not in the least bit clever, and the only reason no one saw him go beside Sydney was that the next object up for auction – a truly heinous enamel washbasin in the shape of a large seashell – appeared to be a hotly contested one.

She placed a few more low bids on the next three items and then took advantage of a short break in the proceedings to excuse herself. Once in the lobby she strode briskly past the servants cleaning up the earlier party and tapped her earpiece in a pre-arranged staccato beat as soon as she exited the building.

"I'm here, Cygnus."

"Sirius, I am en route to location Y3, that's Yankee Three."

"Copy, Cygnus, will follow at distance."

SD-6 maintained a series of covert locations for meets, ranked in order of security. Y was the lowest of five levels (Dixon had once joked that it stood for "why bother concealing the meet at all?"). Each level had up to a dozen locations, and no informant knew more than four at a time. They were changed every four months, and only the lower two security levels ever reused a location.

Sydney met Faulk at Y1, Y3, or Y5. He had bid second after Sydney, indicating he would be at the second of "his" three locations.

There was only so fast she could move in her heels, but luckily Y3 – a back corner on the third story of a parking garage – was more easily accessible than the other two. She hailed a taxi and gave him an address two blocks away from the parking garage. Had Faulk been an Alpha-level informant (and Sydney had only ever worked with Yankee-level), she would have been for at least an hour of crisscrossing the city to avoid a possible tail before actually proceeding to the meeting location.

As it was, two blocks was two blocks farther than she particularly wanted to walk on poorly repaired brick walkways, and she had to watch every step she took. The elevator in the parking garage smelled like stale beer and vomit, and she pressed the back of her hand to her nose to keep the stench out.

Faulk was pacing back and forth, slapping a manila envelope against his thigh. He froze when he heard her coming across the mostly empty space toward him, heels clicking on the concrete. When he recognized her, he relaxed to a certain degree, but was obviously still very worried.

Sydney strode past him and peeked over the concrete wall to watch Dixon park across the street, and his voice in her ear told her he was in position as he turned the car off.

"Blonde this time?" Faulk asked in a weak attempt at conversation. "I like it."

His comment reminded her of the headache that had been alleviated somewhat by the cool night air, bringing it raging back, so Sydney wasn't too inclined to respond to his friendly overture.

"I, uh, I picked the closest one I could. Your feet probably hurt." Faulk was staring at the ground, shuffling his feet, and she looked back sharply.

After a moment, she was able to quiet the suspicious part of her brain down and offered him a small smile. "Thank you." He was being uncharacteristically friendly tonight. It was possible he was hoping she could find some other use for him, now that his information about FTL had run out.

"You're welcome," he replied. "I brought what you wanted. It was harder than I thought, but it's all there – security systems and blueprints. I hope it helps." He passed the envelope to her

"We appreciate this," Sydney said, and was surprised to find herself meaning it. Sloane had been right; Faulk had a hero complex and an outsized ego, but he was risking his life to provide them with intelligence that would in turn save lives. As much as her time with him had grated on her, it had left her with an appreciation for the grunt work. "You'll be contacted with the information on your final payment by the usual channels."

"They're planning the final shipment for next Thursday at noon. The usual: two dozen Heckler and Koch G3s, another dozen each of the AK-74s and AK-47s. They're fulfilling a request and adding ten RPG-7 grenade launchers. If payment comes through in time, they're going to double the order of RPG-7s." Faulk's voice always assumed a flat, authoritative tone when he gave her details of the FTL operation. It was as if, subsumed in the details of his intelligence, his dominant personality was pushed to the background and he became the objective informant. "They're taking their time deciding on a location for the meet, so I don't have that for you yet, but with the location of the base you should be able to track them. It can't be far away, as they are receiving a new shipment that same night."

"Okay," Sydney nodded and let out a shaky breath. She knew intimately what each of those weapons was capable of. "Thank you. Make sure you don’t go into work next Thursday, okay?"

"I can take care of myself." He gave her a small crooked smile that was actually somewhat charming, as it changed the sour lines of his face completely. "It was nice working with you. Maybe someday?"

"Maybe," she replied cautiously, knowing full well that this was the last time – barring further injury – she would work in a capacity he might encounter.

Unexpectedly, he reached out his hand, and Sydney found herself answering his smile as she gripped and shook.

Several events took place concomitantly in the next second: sound as the sharp retort of the sniper rifle echoed between the parking garage and the building next door; sight as Faulk's crooked grin was replaced by nothing; and touch as Faulk's hand slid out of her own, brain matter spattered across her left shoulder and neck. It was all followed by a burning sensation as the bullet grazed her trapezoid muscle on its way to flatten against the concrete column behind her.

Sydney stood, dumbfounded, for a heartbeat as she stared where Faulk had just been, looked past him and across the street to an open window. Realization set in quickly, with an almost painful shock, and she threw herself to the ground, landing hard on her elbows and knees. The dress ripped as she rolled, and the twinge of pain in her forearm reminded her of the broken arm that had landed her in this situation in the first place.

By the time she had rolled back to her knees and was scrambling to the wall to ID the shooter, Dixon was yelling over the comm.

"I'm okay, Sirius, repeat, I'm okay. Indiana is dead. Shooter was on the third or fourth floor of the building across the street." Sydney shoved her back against the wall and ripped the dress up further, creating a slit to mid-thigh. As quickly as possible, she pulled the shoes from her feet and kicked them away from her. Finally, she rolled the manila folder and shoved it down the front of her dress, tucking it between her breasts. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, but it wasn't going anywhere, and it kept her hands free.

Freedom of movement accomplished, she rolled to her knees and slowly, carefully, inched her way up to peek over the waist-high wall. The window was still open, and the shooter was clearly visible in the backwashed streetlights.

Her face was exotically lovely and Spanish looking, with long dark hair flowing down the back of a leather jacket. Her movements were efficient as she dismantled the sniper rifle piece by piece.

"Sirius, shooter is on the fourth floor, twelve windows from my left, taking her time. No one I recognize." Given that Sydney had an excellent memory for faces and knew the major figures in all prominent international terrorist organizations, that meant the assassin was a new player on the scene.

She ducked down behind the wall and wiped body fluids from her shoulder, carefully distancing herself from what they actually were, and tracked her gaze right to a covered walkway that led from the second floor of the parking garage to the office building the shooter had fired from. Both buildings belonged to the same company and the walkway was for ease of employee arrival. For Sydney, it was an opportunity.

"Sirius, I'm going after her."

"Cygnus, no, abort. Repeat, abort and stand by for extraction."

"She killed him, she killed Faulk!" He was no longer Indiana on the comms. He deserved his own name in death.

Sydney poked her head back over the wall to see the assassin looking straight at her, parabolic mic in one hand, sniper rifle case in her other. The woman held her gaze and smiled slowly, seductively. Transferring the mic to her other hand, she pressed her lips to her palm and blew the kiss across to Sydney with a smirk.

"She recorded the conversation, Sirius. She's mine," Sydney said to Dixon, her voice cold and low. She tapped the comm again to turn it off, stood up, and ran like hell.

The concrete was cold and rough against her feet, and the nylons shredded instantly. She left Faulk's body cooling and eschewed the elevator in favor of the stairs, taking a flying leap at the top of each flight, one hand on the railing, tapping a few of the steps on the way down with her toes, landing hard. Two stories down she threw her shoulder into the access door, paused for a second to get her bearings, and then spotted the walkway.

The walls of the walkway were glass and glittered in the streetlight, the floor carpeted and softer on her ragged feet. She left vague outlines of bloody footprints on the coarse beige rug and exploded through the double doors at the other end, breathing hard.

The office building was dark for the weekend and Sydney moved more slowly, mapping the hallways in her head as she searched for the stairwell. She found it down the hall from the elevators – one of which was active, pinging its way down from the third floor. It passed her on the second floor, and she ran for the stairs.

Two more long jumps and jarring stops and she was in the large marble lobby, her feet slapping against the cold stone as she rounded the corner to the elevators – the stairs must have gotten her turned around.

The door was just sliding open as she came to it, and Sydney balanced herself on the balls of her feet, fists clenched, breathing hard. Whoever this woman was, she had killed Faulk and she had done it just to prove to Sydney that she could. The fact that she had a recording of a confidential conversation was very nearly a non-factor in Sydney's mind at the moment.

There was no one in the elevator.

She spun around just a fraction of a second too late, and the roundhouse kick took her in the side of the head, just above her right ear. Sydney fell hard, without even the presence of mind to roll. She landed on her shoulder and the jar of the hard surface drove all the air out of her lungs. Collapsing onto her back, she blinked rapidly to clear the sparks from her vision and coughed weakly with what little oxygen was left in her body, fingers scrabbling weakly against the slick floor.

The assassin looked down at her coldly and smiled, stretching a wide, finely shaped mouth in a mocking expression. "Pues, eres Sydney Bristow. No estoy impresionada," she drawled.

Sydney pressed her palms flat against the marble and concentrated on breathing deeply. When she had enough air to speak, she tried to distract the other woman. "Quién eres?" she asked back in the same language.

"Hasta pronto, chiquita," the assassin said lightly, and kicked again, hard.

The boot connected with Sydney's temple and she fell into darkness.

*

She woke to Dixon sponging the blood from her forehead, and when memory came back to her, she tried to sit up.

"Whoa, hey there, Syd, not just yet."

The wisdom of his words was proved in the rush of nauseating dizziness that followed, and Sydney rolled just in time to throw up on the floor of the van instead of on the already ruined evening gown.

"God, I'm sorry, Dixon," she whispered when she rolled back and followed his advice, sinking her head onto the rolled-up jacket that served as a pillow.

"You took a nasty hit," he said by way of reassurance, and moved to clean up the vomit. He returned a few seconds later and picked up the damp towel again, dabbing carefully at what she assumed was blood from where the woman had kicked her. Her feet throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and the cramp from her arches was nothing compared with the roaring pain that traveled up her calves when she tried to rotate her ankles. Thinking of her feet brought her back to the point of the evening's excursion.

"Oh – God – the files – " Sydney realized, grasping at her chest, and was met with a reassuring crinkle. She sighed in relief and tugged the manila folder out. It was creased and slightly damp with sweat, but it was still there.

"Relax," he advised. "Do you think you can keep an aspirin down? It's all I've got with me, and I have to clean out your feet. You're going to want something."

She nodded weakly and with his supporting arm behind her, sat up enough to swallow two aspirin and a few sips of water. He lowered her back to the floor of the van and crawled down to her feet. His fingers were gentle and sure, but she still bit back a yell when he used tweezers to pick out the first pebble of concrete.

To keep her mind from her feet, she started talking. "There's going to have to be some kind of cleanup done. We can't just leave Faulk there."

"I radioed SD-6 as soon as I got you out of there. There should already be someone taking care of it." He hit a particularly sensitive spot and she curled her toes in and resisted the urge to yank her foot from his hands.

"How did you get me out of there?" When he didn't answer, she prodded, "Dixon?"

"Broke in the front door. It was just glass," he answered bluntly, and began slathering antiseptic on her feet before wrapping them with the roll of gauze from the basic med kit.

"Oh, Dixon," she said softly, and felt tears sting the back of her eyes as she pictured her partner breaking in and carrying her out. "Thank you. I know you didn't want me to go after her, and this – it was all my fault."

"Faulk wasn't your fault," he replied, pinpointing her guilt exactly. "He must have been sloppy, or someone else found out. I don’t think that woman was FTL. She's too good."

He did have a point. FTL had always been more of a smash and grab organization. "K Directorate?"

"That's my best guess. When you're a little better you can give them a description and we'll see what turns up." He finished wrapping her right foot and moved on to her left, and once again she had to suppress the urge to pull her foot away.

"She knew who I was," Sydney remembered. "And she left me alive on purpose. She could just as easily have killed me."

"Well, I for one am glad she didn't. In the meantime I suggest you lie back. Stay awake, though. You might have a concussion."

"I do," she confirmed. She'd had enough concussions to know the sensation, and concentrated on keeping her eyes wide open, pulling together every scrap of information she had gleaned about the mystery assassin during their short time together.

Dixon finished with her left foot and crawled back past her to the driver's seat, patting her shoulder absently and promising to get them to a safe house as soon as possible where her head injury could be treated and she could receive some better painkillers.

Sydney made a noncommittal noise in response and frowned in thought as Dixon started the van. Her mind was still hard at work, traveling networks and cataloguing faces, trying to fit this new woman's smirking smile into context.

One thing was for sure, they hadn't seen the last of her.


End file.
